Sam Speaks

The Elections

September 2006

Sam usually tries to avoid discussing politics, Mexican or otherwise. Nevertheless, lately we’ve received a lot of requests for analyses of what happened on July 2nd and its rowdy aftermath. It has become the elephant in the chat room, so we shall expose the beast by explaining what did, and did not happen, in Mexico post-7/2. Lest you find yourself itching to get to the good part, fear not, our analysis ends cautiously upbeat.

First, the basics. Mexico has six-year presidential terms called “sexenios.” In a nod to authoritarian ghosts of the past, the Republic (officially called the United Mexican States or “Estados Unidos Mexicanos”) does not allow re-election at any level or in any branch; municipal, state, or federal; executive, or legislative. The oxymoronic PRI, or Institutional Revolutionary Party (how can a revolution be institutionalized?), ended the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917 not by winning the fight, but rather by co-opting the different strongmen located in different parts of the country. They divided up the spoils and set forth rules by which presidents would have near-dictatorial powers, but only for 6 years. After that, they would transfer power peacefully to another member of the plutocracy…and so on for just over 70 years. The upshot was a country with enviable stability (by Latin American standards) and impressive economic development well into the 1970s. The genius of the system (Vargas Llosa called it the “perfect dictatorship”) lay in its ability to bring divergent interest groups into the fold. By the standards of one-party rule, there was relatively little violent repression and a lot of self-censorship on behalf of the media. The dark side was the insidious corruption and lack of political freedom it engendered.

The system showed its weaknesses during the student repression of 1968, when students from the new middle classes were shot down when they demanded change. The lurch to the left from 1970-1982 (Echeverría and López Portillo) was able to sap some of the vitality from the movement, but Mexico also had its own little version of a “dirty war” to kill off any potential guerrillas. In the end, the populism of the 1970s ended in the famous 1982 debt crisis that Mexico began and the beginning of what will be by 2012, 30 years of center-right governments.

Despite the fact that it is generally accepted that the 1994 election of President Zedillo was legitimate, it wasn't until the transition to a different party from the PRI, in Fox's 2000 election, that Mexico officially became a respected democracy. By this time, social pressures had molded a hugely expensive electoral machine that is recognized by experts to be among the most sophisticated in the world. It has its own parallel institutions and hologram-embossed, magnetic strip-touting, fingerprint-wearing photo IDs distributed to 95% of the voting-age population.

So why the fuss? To make a long story short, the system had not been tested to its limits because the previous election results had presented wide enough margins for there to be no contesting the winner. This time, the difference between first-place Felipe Calderón and second-place Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) was about 0.56% of the votes. Further, AMLO had never expected to lose because he was at the top of the polls most of the time. He had no Plan B, which explains why he went all Mr. Hyde on us when he emerged as the loser. It was the perfect storm: a leftist candidate, favored in the opinion polls, loses with less than a 1% point difference. The independent Federal Electoral Tribunal declared the vote valid and we now have a President-elect. It is important to understand that the entire system is based on trusting the nearly 1,000,000 randomly-selected citizens who count the votes on election day. It is very much a citizen-based democracy, which is why it is anathema to do an “official” recount.

The good news is that Mexico weathered the tempest. Partly it’s because AMLO is a politician, not a guerrilla leader. Partly it’s because, unlike bizarro Hugo Chávez, he has no military links, or contacts. But mostly it’s because a majority of Mexicans consider that they have something to lose. If there is one clear message that the elections of 2006 give it’s that Mexico now has a sizeable middle class that has a stake in the system. That is not to belittle the fact that about 20-30% of the population believes AMLO’s conspiracy theories. Rather, it points to the fact that the old socialist/nationalist idea that Mexico’s poor are an overwhelming majority that can be manipulated by a populist megalomaniac is no longer true (if it ever was). Even though this correspondent believes that Obrador would have mellowed in power, his blatant disregard for the growing North of the country and his street-fighter language cost him the presidency. He has no one to blame but himself.

President Fox is itching to leave the presidency and he is obsessed with keeping his record without the dirty “R” word, in this case “repression.” Stated more directly, he doesn’t want to be president anymore (some would ask if he ever did). From now until the 1st of December we will probably see more narcoviolence and few solutions to social unrest as the Fox regime clumsily shirks its responsibilities. It’s messy, but Fox is basically getting exactly what he wanted. As for Calderón, there’s every reason to believe that he’ll be a good President. Sam gives him the benefit of the doubt.

What happens now? Lacking a trustworthy crystal ball, Sam can only speculate that AMLO’s movement will continue losing power (attendance was down to ¼ during the silly “National Democratic Convention”). We got lovely Reforma back, which attests to the fact that the PRD has a lot of people who are not as keen on committing political suicide as the PRD’s erstwhile master. Also, significantly, you’ll notice that the Bolsa is near historic highs and that the peso didn’t even flinch at AMLO’s puerile tirades. If Calderón’s government knows what’s good for it, it will apply the carrot and stick method, isolating the “ultras” and working with the moderates. Just like the population wants…and just what Mexico needs. So, if you’re still thinking of moving to, or investing in, Mexico, Sam says: come on in, the water’s fine!

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